Jarulan by the River

by Lily Woodhouse

  She’d do some of her own assimilation, but make it happy. She would invite the vicar who married her to Matt and the Catholic priest from Bangalow; she would invite the carter who had brought Irving and his friends to Jarulan, all her own staff, the cook, the new rabbito and doggo and their woman, Evie, who was sister to one and wife of the other, and who had lost her only child. She would even invite the ghosts.

  A shape fell across the paper. The military cap, the outstretched arm. She wouldn’t look. She wouldn’t let it know she could see it. Who are you? she wanted to ask. Leave me alone!

  ‘There you are.’

  It was Irving, so light on his feet he may as well have made no contact with the ground, his face in shadow. At last he’d come. She glanced up at him, at his red cotton shirt and canvas trousers. He’d come in from working, only washed his face and hands.

  ‘What are you doing?’ He gestured towards the paper, the wafer-thin stationery she used normally to write to her mother.

  ‘A list. People to invite for a party. You and Bill and Jell can make up a band.’

  ‘A band, eh?’

  A wicker chair had migrated south along the verandah in the last storms. Irving went to pick it up and a huntsman the size of a dinner plate scuttled away from under, vanishing behind a downpipe. He put the chair close beside her, closer than he needed to, so after a moment she took his hand and drew it up to lie in her lap, their fingers interlaced brown and white. She felt his eyes travel up her cocooned body to her face — she could feel his gaze resting there — but she wouldn’t meet his eye, not yet. She was frightened of what he might see there, what he might not want to see but register anyway. She would give him no hint of how she’d longed for him these past nights.

  ‘You sure about that?’ asked Irving. ‘About the band?’

  She nodded.

  ‘Too hot, eh?’

  ‘Catching a breeze, if there is one.’

  He blew gently on her shoulder. ‘There’s one.’ Blew again. ‘Another.’

  She could so easily melt into his arms, kiss him, let herself believe he was falling in love with her. Of course he would not. Could not.

  ‘I’m going to have a bath.’

  He leaned away, back into his chair.

  ‘The water will be coolish and brackish,’ she went on, ‘but it’s all right.’ She stood up, keeping hold of his hand while he looked up at her and read her intent. She led him to the bathroom.

  The bath was three-quarters full and their bodies brought the murky water lapping to the brim. They lay with her head on his chest, he with his eyes closed, exploring her slippery submerged body gently, his even breath skipping when hers did, the thud of his heart under her ear. They didn’t talk — what was there to talk about?

  The glass at the window blackened, the night insects took over from the day, the bath cooled and soothed, and when they finally left the water he was wanting her again, properly, so he carried her still wet to the bedroom. It was her turn then to see him, to know him as well as she could by the light of a modesty lamp brought to glow beside the bed. Immodesty lamp! She nearly laughed, and Irving, looking down into her face, saw the impulse in her eyes. A query rose in his, a guardedness, and she felt herself return to the reality of what they were doing. She would never know him properly; he had resisted her and would resist her still. The bathtime caressing had been that of a man starved of women, a man the church had got to. He was shielded from her because of that — his religion — and also, yes, by his Maori-ness, his mother’s blood wrapping him around and drawing him away from her. Who was he? Would she ever know? She drew his face closer, kissed him, tried to make it true that he thought only of her in that instant and in that moment, that she was everything for him. The pleasure she gave him made him hers.

  *

  In the morning he woke before she did, dressed quietly and went downstairs to the library. At the desk he opened the curtains and lit the lamp to help the dawn and started going through the papers. There were heavy files with green or deep red mottled covers, bound with cloth. The ones dating from his grandfather’s day were neat and tidy; the more recent, less so. Pages were left blank, as if during the months and dates that headed them the tracking of money was suddenly not important. At the back of the second ledger was a column topped with his own name — a list of all the things she’d given him since his arrival, what she’d paid.

  He closed the back cover, opened it again, re-read. What did she mean by it? Did she anticipate a time when he would have to make it up to her? The words were neat, as chiselled and terrifying as the names on the memorial up the hill. The hat and clobber, the saddle, the dogs, the gun. The new guitar. The Bible, a gift that surprised him, since they’d never talked about God. A list of the new furniture, the price paid for paint and new drapes bought for the wing, all itemised in a neat hand.

  Eddie’s wing. He’d go there now. The book-lined room was oppressive with its gloom and stale smell, crumbling paper, the cruel account, the greedy ancestor in oils on the wall. It wasn’t until he was blundering along the dawn verandah that he remembered what he’d gone to the library to do. The title deeds. The list had pushed him away from his goal. The title deeds. That was what they were called, the documents that went along with owning land. Title deeds and signatories and clauses and subclauses — causes of anguished consternation among some of the older men on the shearing gangs back home. Land unwillingly sold, contracted by villains to thieves. If you were going to claim ownership, you had to have the papers. You had to have the proof. Eddie had said, ‘Make sure it’s yours on paper.’

  If Eddie was here Irving would tell him, ‘But I don’t want it, Pa.’

  He didn’t. For a while maybe, then somewhere else, or home. After breakfast he would go back to the library and find Rufina’s list and strike out the total at the bottom — hundreds of pounds. He’d turn it into a nought. He’d write ‘Aroha’ and she could wonder what it meant.

  Outside the door to his wing he paused and stared at the ground, hands on hips, examined his big toe on the boards and suddenly couldn’t breathe. What had he done? Done again? Try to breathe. Forgive me, Father. But the breath wouldn’t come that way either so he tipped his head back, mouth pulling in air, and knew that not only the Holy Ghost but his grandfather judged him as well; two stern figures who hovered above him, judging him.

  He opened his eyes, wanting the eternity of the sky and the promise of redemption, but what he saw was the underside of the verandah roof, peeling corrugated iron and wormy wooden beams, crawling with ants and beetles, and a bat. A tiny bat hanging upside down from the rafters, ugly little snout waffling, beady eyes cloudy. When he reached up and took hold, it bared its pointed teeth but didn’t struggle. Under his hand the folded wings felt silky, the wildly beating heart frightened. A white ruff around the ratty piggy face and over-sized ears, whorled and glistening as shells. It could be very old or very young. And sick, to be out all on its own, stirring after daybreak. He tucked it inside his shirt, facing outward, in case it decided to have a chew on him. What kind of food did it live off?

  Bill was on the bed, snoring, with his boots on. Irving half-thought he’d wake him to ask him if he knew. The bat would be hungry. Maybe it had flown around all night with its mates and found nothing. Poor little pekapeka.

  A cage was what was needed, to keep it safe. He’d seen one recently, outside a door. Which door? There were so many doors. It was the other morning, when Helena had the front door cranked open and was energetically running the carpet-sweeper up and down the runner. There had been a cage there, sitting on the floor. He’d go and get it.

  On the wide windowsill near the bed was an insect graveyard, formed since Jell was forever opening the screens and forgetting to close them again. A green and red bug showed signs of life, so Irving picked it up by one leg and held it close to the bat’s snout. The pink mouth opened wide though the eyes remained half closed. He put the beetle in and watched with interest as the ja
w worked and flakes and legs and bits floated down and settled on Bill’s sleeping arm.

  When the bat was finished, he went back out around the verandah to the front door, which wasn’t locked. Never was, as far as he knew. It was heavy and stiff and made a racket as he pushed it open, catching up the edge of the carpet inexpertly replaced by Helena. The little bat shifted in his hand, the deeper gloom of the vestibule making it more alert. The cage had been shifted to lie just inside a room, the room Rufina usually kept locked. Helena must have cleaned in here too and forgotten to lock the door afterwards.

  He shunted the door wider, bending to put the bat inside the birdcage. It was old-fashioned, with bars close enough together to contain his new friend — and caught a gleam of glass all around him, myriad staring eyes. As he straightened he felt a shiver run the length of his spine. What was this place? Window after window of stiff dead animals pretending life. A pelican with black waxen paddles and plaster pouch; a family of koalas with the mother carrying a tiny baby; a bug-eyed possum; a balding echidna with spikes fallen to the case floor like a handful of kindling; a forlorn squinting dingo pup set pigeon-toed; wombats with doleful expressions. There were birds of types he’d never seen living, one long-legged and spindle-toed positioned on green paper lily pads with a mirror to imitate a pond. ‘Christbird’ read the label. It was an animal that could walk on water! His interest quickened. He’d seen this kind of thing before, of course, stuffed animals — a mongoose and a snake in a pub in Sydney, a tiny fawn in the hall of a Waikato farmhouse, hunting trophies of stag and boar heads — but never so many, so bizarre, all at once.

  In the far corner there was a partition and behind it he found a sink with a tap, a bench, knives and tools, a bag of clay. Lying in a cleared space was the skin of a tree frog, wrinkled and green, like an empty purse. A clay head lay beside it, crumbling, unsuccessful, and a tiny body fashioned with sticks and kapok. Water beaded the blades of a pair of scissors. She had been in here recently, then. Rufina. When he asked her about the room one night in the belvedere, she had told him it was special to Matthew, that she was keeping it that way. Not a word about this hobby of hers. He supposed that’s what it was. A hobby, how she occupied herself while the work of the farm went on around her. When she wasn’t making a show of feeding the pigs or collecting eggs or mixing the poison for the tick gate she was in here, defying death.

  A footfall sounded on the other side of the partition, then another, and the sound of cloth brushing against glass.

  ‘Hello?’

  No answer, so he went out to see Rufina holding the cage, the bat huddled at the bottom. She was dressed for work, in her trousers and shirt, with the addition of an oilskin apron.

  ‘What a fright you gave me, Irving,’ she said, her voice sounding false, high-pitched. She put the cage down on top of a vitrine, none too gently. Sprawled on the cage floor the bat stretched its arms for balance, the thin bones sewn into the membranous wings. The silver shell ears flickered and stilled. One of them had a tiny tear at the top. A sign of age, maybe.

  One glance at her flushed face was enough. He had intruded without her permission. ‘The door was open.’

  She gave him a little disbelieving smile and gestured at the bat. ‘You want me to mount this?’

  Stallions mounted mares, dogs mounted bitches. What was she talking about? He realised one side of his mouth had lifted into a leery grin. She meant stuff it. Stand it up. She stepped past him, behind the partition. The clunk of a glass bottle, the smell of ether that rose from a square of cotton she carried back. Fumbling, he rushed to open the cage door and gather the creature into one hand.

  ‘I’m going to fix it up and let it go.’

  She was close to him, the stink of ether stronger. He felt her breast brush against his arm; she was holding the wad towards the tiny head protruding from his gentle fist.

  ‘It’s dying anyway. You can see that,’ she said. ‘Anyway, you shouldn’t be handling it.’

  He’d let it go now, get it away from her. Out of the room he went, through the vestibule, across the verandah and out into the garden. Where did bats live when they were at home? He would return it to his mates, to its family; he’d find it another snack. On a flowering bush sat a brown and yellow butterfly, not so beautiful that he felt guilty crushing it and holding it to the hungry mouth. This time the bat’s appetite wore off quickly, leaving the butterfly half-finished. Irving brought the yellow wing to his nose, sniffed it — it smelt of nothing. Pollen, maybe. He flicked it away, the sticky black body adhering to his fingers.

  At home, pekapeka lived in caves in the bush. He’d find a cave, though he’d not noticed any. Maybe along by the river.

  ‘This is ridiculous. Come back.’ She had followed him. ‘I’ll show you how it’s done.’

  The fountain. The nearest approximation to a cave, where the little fella would be safe and where, if Irving remembered, he could bring it another snack later. Where it could have a drink of water. From where, when the night came, it could fly out and head for home.

  Rufina followed him all the way and stood watching as he clambered over the low wall, splashed through the inches of brown water mellowing from the season’s rain and reached into a deep niche between a woman clothed only in her long stone hair, a lamb at her feet, and a man with a scrubbing brush of dead grass on top of his head. The central column behind them was like a tree trunk, whorled as the trunk on the family crest on the landing window. The axe, the bull, the bird, the cedar. Family pride set into the glass and the fountain. He turned to face her, the bat still in his hand, its ears drooping. Perhaps it was going to die, and soon.

  ‘You’ve got this sort already, then?’

  She nodded. ‘Matthew made a display. It’s a business to catch them. Nets and so forth.’

  He reached into the niche again and felt for a ledge, lay the bat down. In farewell he patted it gently and felt in return a little prick, just one, from one of the tiny teeth. He withdrew his hand, examined his thumb.

  ‘Did it bite you?’ Rufina asked sharply.

  ‘No. Not really.’

  ‘Matthew never touched them.’

  ‘How did he make the display, then?’ She was trying to unnerve him.

  ‘After he’d washed the skins. Treated them with carbolic and so forth. They carry disease.’

  Only hours ago he was making passionate love to this woman, holding her in his arms in the bath. In the early morning light her skin looked fragile, as thin and pale as the paper she’d been writing on when he’d come to find her last night. It wouldn’t happen again. She’d said he had to be her lover and he had been. He’d fulfilled his part of the bargain. He would ask her about the title deeds but not now while she was staring at him in that peculiar, strained way. He’d have to pick his moment.

  His feet left wet prints all the way along the verandah back towards Eddie’s wing, where he roused Bill and Jell and went to the kitchen. Nan and Helena were cooking breakfast, Helena in high spirits. While they were eating, the swaggie woman came in and had some too. She told them a little of her adventures and travels, and although Irving could see it was hard going, he envied her her freedom. The open road. The long stretches of coast. When Evie laughed at some jibe of Bill’s, throwing her head back, Irving saw she had teeth like the pekapeka, pointed and sparse.

  ‘Where are Eric and Jack?’ he asked her.

  ‘Out shootin’. This place is overrun.’

  He nodded. It was, but not as bad as some of the farms he’d seen in his own country. Whole hillsides coming alive, a wheat field seething with them. He longed for it suddenly, home, rabbits and all. The cool air in the evenings, faces of people he loved, the long dry days of summer, not this endless rain. It was starting again, streaking the kitchen window above the wooden bench.

  What was he to do once he got the deeds, once he owned the farm on paper? Then what? He didn’t want to stay here. Did any of them?

  ‘Jell?’

  The bo
y looked up from his eggs.

  ‘What are your plans?’

  The question made the kid uneasy. He glanced at Bill and then at Helena, who reddened as she handed him another piece of toast from the conical grill at the stove. Wrong person to ask, since Jell wouldn’t be making his own plans. Not yet. He was seventeen last birthday. Less than three years was all the difference between them, Irving and Jell, yet Irving had had all the experience he needed to call himself a man.

  ‘You remind me of your grandfather,’ Nan said, watching him across the table. ‘Even though you’re dark. You’re very like him.’

  ‘Shame he’s gone,’ said Irving, and meant it. If Matthew hadn’t died, then Rufina would never have come to New Zealand looking for Eddie. He remembered years ago, when he was a little boy, asking his father where he was from and if he would go back there. I never can, his father had said. I never would. He explained to him what a remittance man was, a man paid to go away and stay away. A solution to save his own skin as well as the hides of his family.

  Is that what I am now, Irving wondered. Remittance man gone the other way and with only the promise of money. Make sure it’s yours on paper, Eddie had said. Sell it as soon as you can, before the vultures gather.

  Bring the money home.

  Of course. That’s what Eddie had meant all along. Why hadn’t the old man explained that bit? What this money could do at home, the houses it could build, the farms to keep and grow and prosper! The plans he could make. A doctor nearby with a proper clinic, improvements to the school.

  He wasn’t one of the remittance men, then, because they never went home. He would, one day. He calmed down, felt himself settle away from the shameful idea of being in exile and finished eating his breakfast. Perhaps remittance men didn’t exist anymore. It seemed an old-fashioned thing, from the days of coaches and gaiters and musket wars.